Born and raised in the Midlands he began life as a Coventry City fan, but experienced his ‘road to Damascus’ moment during a routine away match in the early-1960s. “I went with City to the old Fellows Park [Walsall’s home until their 1990 move to the Bescot Stadium], and just fell in love with it,” he says. “It was a real football ground and a smashing little club.
"THERE'S TIMES I WISH I'D NEVER STARTED"
“When I began working with my current music partners, it turned out that one of them is a big Saddlers fan and I ended up going to watch them play Northwich Victoria in the FA Cup. I said to him, ‘Christ, you must be the only Walsall fan to travel up from London. If you ever want a bit of company give me a call.’ We’ve been going nearly every week for more than 10 years now.”
The music business has made Waterman a very wealthy man. In a career spanning more than 25 years in the industry he has produced and written more than 200 hit singles for the likes of Kylie Minogue, Steps and Rick Astley. He’s chairman of four successful companies – three in music plus a railway maintenance business – so why doesn’t he put his money where his mouth is and buy a stake in the Saddlers?
“I have a season ticket and I take the odd match sponsorship, but I wouldn’t invest in Walsall. In fact, I wouldn’t invest in football full stop,” he says. “Honestly, nobody loves football more than me, but I can’t see how a club the size of Coventry, for example, can get themselves £30m in debt. I don’t want to sit in the stands at the Bescot and have the fans shouting at me: ‘Hey you big fat bastard, get your chequebook out.’ B*ll*cks to that...”
) If I had the money & where-with-all I'd happily step in to rescue primarily CCFC, secondarily Walsall.
